Friday, July 21, 2017

Basic Etiquette for Sharing Online Content

A lot of people have asked me to share a blog post about the online
etiquette for mentioning and/or sharing content online.

Mentioning and sharing
content from sites we find valuable is the ultimate compliment, and a great
way to encourage other bloggers and writers.

Before we begin, let me clarify something. Sharing links or
a short quote from another site isn’t a copyright infringement. For those
concerned about copyright information, here’s a link to a blog I wrote on CopyrightBasics for Bloggers.

The Basics of Sharing
Online Content

The first thing we need to remember when sharing content
owned by someone else is that we are giving them free word-of-mouth
recognition. It’s exactly like saying something nice about a physical business
(or church, charity, school, etc.) and giving the address so the person you’re
talking to can find it if they want to visit.

Second, we never need to worry about sharing the title of
something—blog post, article, book, website, etc. Titles cannot be copyrighted
so there’s no way that can be construed ad negative behavior.

Third, if someone has something visible to the public online,
then it’s legal to share.

Etiquette Basics

When I’m sharing someone else’s content—either in social
media or quoting them in a blog post or article—I do my best to make sure no
one thinks I’m sharing something I created. For example, if I’m sharing DiAnn
Mills’ blog post about Master Plotting,
then I’m going to mention her name as the author.

For a blog post or
article, it looks like my reference to DiAnn’s post in the paragraph above.
I make sure those who read that sentence know I’m referring to something
written by someone else.

The social media update above lets readers know immediately
that the material I’m referring to is written by someone else. It also goes a
step further in that it also mentions the site where the material is presented.
That’s only necessary if the site isn’t the website of the author. If the
article written by DiAnn Mills was on DiAnn’s website, I wouldn’t have
mentioned her twice.

Sometimes you won’t have room to mention the author and the
website because of update-length restriction on certain platforms, like
Twitter. In that case, use your discretion. I usually mention the author if I
just have to choose one, but not always.

What NOT to Do

There are some things you’ll want to avoid doing—either
because they’re poor etiquette or an outright violation of copyright.

1. Try to avoid mentioning a person, product, or place in a
negative light. There may be times when you are tempted to bend this rule, but I
recommend you do so only after a lot of thought and consideration. Don’t EVER
post something negative without pausing to see if you’re ready to deal with the
fallout.

2. Don’t repost someone else’s material without prior
permission. You can quote a sentence or two from a blog post or article, but
that’s it. After that, you need to contact the author and receive their
permission. This is true even if they have an older blog and there’s a REPOST
button still included.

The reason you don’t want to repost without permission is
because of Google’s definition of plagiarism. Google considers defines any repeated
post or article as plagiarism, even if it’s the author who is repeating the
information.

3. If the information you want to share is in a private or
limited membership group of any type, you should never share the information
publically without prior permission. For example, many authors send out
newsletters two or three times of year. The best newsletters contain additional
information that the author doesn’t share publically. Another example would be
if you’re in a private Facebook group, information shared in those groups is
implicitly understood to be PRIVATE. It’s the depth of poor etiquette to
release that information publically.

Bottom Line

Sharing a link to someone else’s—public—online work is a
great thing to do. It’s one of the best ways to support another author. With
these guidelines firmly in mind, you can share without fear of doing something
wrong.

Now it’s your turn, do you have any questions about online
sharing? Or, have you ever had a sharing experience you’d like to . . . uh . .
. share? LOL!